


requiescat in pace

by thequeernessofsupers (wearethewitches)



Series: general danvers week.2 [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Gay, Gen, General Danvers Week, Krypton, Lesbians in Space, Science, Science Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 09:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11399769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/thequeernessofsupers
Summary: general danvers week, day one: krypton auor, when Earth is invaded, Alex is the one that is in charge of the only ship out.





	requiescat in pace

 

The orange skyline is empty, except for sleek, silver buildings. She breathes in and the air is…heavy, like her bones. _The gravity is too strong_ , Alex thinks, remembering horrifying television and _gravity torture_. The space-ship is barely a foot behind her and Alex knows that she can’t let her people deal with this, not the children or the adults. Her hand strikes out, slamming on the button to shut the door and her fellow agents yell and shout, but the door locks behind her – it took them hours just to open it and Alex is sure that the planet’s residents will find her before they open it again.

Beside her, J’onn – towering over her, giving her an unimpressed look – pulls her over to him. Alex lets him pick her up, wondering if the gravity affects him, too, before she remembers that Mars has a smaller mass than Earth did. _He probably feels this more than I do. He can still fly, though._ She wonders if it takes more strength for him to lift off, to carry her up into the heavy air that makes her slightly dizzy.

“Oxygen isn’t the same,” she murmurs. “Lower?”

“Higher,” J’onn grunts. “Less carbon dioxide, however.”

“Are you okay?” she questions as they fly towards the city, only for a flying vehicle to meet them halfway, appearing out of nowhere. “They have invisibility powers.”

“Technology on Krypton is of a decidedly futuristic type, at least, you would see it as such.”

They float beside the vehicle, the side of which slides out of view to reveal bipedal humanoids dressed in black jumpsuits. They carry small guns – _phasers?_ Alex wonders amusedly – and point them at the both of them, before speaking in Galactic Standard – a language that J’onn had been trying to teach them all, while their ship flew through the stars, but one that Alex only has minimal tutelage in, having been the captain of the ship and therefore quite busy.

J’onn replies to them calmly, before the Kryptonians invite them into the flying vehicle. Alex is set down on the floor, out flat and she doesn’t complain, feeling like she’s run a marathon, all her muscles in pain. One of the aliens – _no, natives, I’m the alien here_ – comes close, crouching by her side. She studies them. They look female and long blonde hair is curled heavily, pinned back at her ears. She holds a device over Alex’s head and she feels a spike of pain, before her thoughts scramble. It’s like her years in St Petersburg, when she was speaking Russian every day, her thoughts mixing, twisting between two different languages.

The blonde woman smiles. “Hello, human.”

“Oh,” Alex starts, eyes widening, all at once trying to figure out how the device works. “Did you reconfigure my brain-waves?”

“No. More like, I shared an understanding between us. I’ll be your guide, while you’re here. Your languages are quite interesting.”

“So are yours,” Alex states, blinking as she mentally reviews Kryptonian, Galactic Standard and Starhavenian – as well as what seems to be two dozen other alien languages. “You’re a linguaphile. Is that why you did this with me?”

“Something like that. We didn’t recognise your craft-type, so assumed you were from a planet that has only recently developed such technology and therefore, not a part of the Galactic Federation.”

“True,” Alex says, before feeling the start of a headache coming on. “Do you happen to have exoskeletons that we can use? Us humans, I mean? Your gravity…”

“Of course,” the woman says, then puts a hand to her chest. “The House of El would be happy to provide you all life-supporting technology until you can be relocated to a planet with better-suited conditions for your anatomy.”

“Thanks,” Alex grimaces. “I’m Alex, Doctor Alex Danvers.”

“Kara Zor-El, of the House of El. Welcome to Krypton, Doctor Danvers.”

* * *

They’re placed in a small high-rise, with a room each, except where the children are concerned – the Kryptonians introduce their concept of a nursery, where all children below the age of fourteen live and breath together, the only thing separating them being thin, white opaque sheets. Alex visits the nursery often, spending time with the young teenagers that bemoan the rules enforced by their hosts, even as they adapt to the gravity far easier than any of the adults – a strange phenomenon that Alex doesn’t really want to think about, when her exoskeleton digs into her spine and major limb joints in a way that would make it too easy to kill her.

Kara herself stays with her, too. She follows Alex around all day, answering all her questions and asking her own, wanting to know about Earth before their infamous invasion, the Daxam Occupation being something the Kryptonian is very interested in. Daxam is apparently Krypton’s sister-planet – or was, before they abandoned it after a solar-flare that irradiated the surface, reaching to the stars for another planet to live on. Earth is only the latest of five worlds to be taken over.

“The Kryptonian Council is struggling to gain support, so that we might help return each of the planets to their former occupants,” Kara tells her, a month into their stay. “The Federation is wide-spread, across fifteen galaxies and the Daxammites have flown into your Milky Way, one of the few galaxies yet to be colonised due to the lack of lifeforms on each planet in your solar system.”

“Lead is poisonous to them,” Alex offers, “Do you even have lead here?”

“No. Maybe though, you could help my father synthesise some?”

This is what leads Alex to leaving the high-rise, joining Zor-El, Kara’s father, in his lab on the other side of Argo City. Most of the first days are spent synchronising and learning each other’s table of elements. Alex has to argue the inclusion of her parents, when it becomes too frustrating and then, when they arrive, Jeremiah and Eliza make a list, asking for another four humans to join them. Making a Science Council – as Kara calls it – the seven of them make leaps and bounds, learning the Kryptonian Elemental Scale – the _KES_ – and other Galactic Standard Formulae.

“Lead is…” Alex writes _[Xe] 4f145d106s26p2_ on a holographic board, the day they all agree upon the Earth conversion KES. Four hours later, they have an impossibly long number that they keep on calculating, even as Zor-El watches with awe.

“I’ve seen this before!” he whispers, when they finish.

“You have, father?” Kara frowns at the long, long Kryptonian number that equates to the electron configuration of lead.

“Yes, my darling,” Zor-El nods, before raising his hands to the board, minimising it into a tiny, glowing ball of numbers, using a grey tech stick to take it off, hurrying over to the synthesiser. “I will have to order some off-planet materials, to power and provide fuel for the synthesiser, but I can do it. This _lead_ will be a weapon to use against the Daxammites and to end their Occupation of the Five. You must call the General, Kara!”

“The General?”

* * *

‘The General’ turns out to be Kara’s gorgeous, smoking hot aunt who Alex had internally drooled over whenever she popped in to see Kara, a few days earlier. Astra In-Ze, High General of the Kryptonian Military Guild is very pleased to find that they have a weapon that causes severe damage to Daxammites.

“It was all Alex’s idea, Aunt Astra,” Kara basically gushes, holding one of her aunts hands tightly. “Alex!”

“Uh…” Alex coughs slightly, looking Astra up and down, the older woman eyeing her with interest. “Hi.”

“Good afternoon, Doctor Alexandra Danvers…”

Alex’s eyes widen. “How the hell do you know my full first name?” _I haven’t even told **Kara** the truth, let alone anyone else._

Astra smiles a little, peering at Alex with interest. “Your mother called you Alexandra when I last visited, when she asked you to control your ‘ _gay’,_ in your native tongue. What was she referring to, might I ask? You did not seem happy when we last met.”

Beside her, Jeremiah coughs, grinning. “Really, Alex? I wondered why your mother said that.” He looks to the General. “The word _‘gay’_ has a dual meaning, the first referring to happiness and the second being-”

“Dad!” Alex interrupts him, cringing. “Stop, please, you’re embarrassing.”

“It’s my job to embarrass you,” he replies, but quiets, returning to Eliza’s side, where she talks with Zor-El, trying to uncover the Kryptonian equivalent to String Theory.

Kara raises an eyebrow in sync with Astra. “Embarrass you? What is embarrassing about this _‘gay’_?”

Alex grimaces, really not wanting to get into it. Thankfully, Carter speeds into the laboratory at that moment, followed by his mother. Kara quickly turns her attention to the formerly infamous Cat Grant, Alex wondering briefly when she’d gotten her hands on heels at the familiar clicking sound before realising something poignant. She points discreetly at Kara, as she looks at the Media Mogul.

“That, that’s _‘gay’_.”

Cat glances over, narrowing her eyes. “I beg your pardon?” Then, of course, she sees Kara and stops chasing after Carter, eyes widening. “Oh my.”

Astra hums in understanding. “You refer to homosexuality. Do you find me attractive, Doctor Danvers?”

“Uh, I mean, you’re not…bad,” Alex forces herself not to flush, before her communicator chirps. Taking it from her belt, lightning-fast, Alex sees her sister on the other end and uses it as a way to get out of the conversation. “Susie, what’s up?”

Susie’s holographic face beams at her. “ _Winn’s in love!_ ”

“You’re kidding,” Alex blinks, twisting away from the two Kryptonian women. “Who?”

“ _A Kryptonian man. He’s called Jim-Sen._ ”

“And?”

“ _And our lil’bro’s got stutter issues,_ ” Susie rolls her eyes. “ _Get Mom down here. She’s not answering her comm._ ”

“Fine,” Alex hangs up, jogging over to her parents. “Mom, you need to go see Winn. He needs your help.”

“What with, Alex?” Eliza sighs, “I’m a bit busy, here.”

“I don’t know, but Susie says it’s important,” Alex replies. “You’re needed, c’mon.” She takes her mother’s hand, dragging her away from Zor-El, using the chance to disappear from the lab and get away from General Astra In-Ze.

_I really need to get a life. We’re leaving the planet, soon._

Alex tries to ignore how her gut twists at the thought.

* * *

When they return to Earth, six months later, there is immediately a problem. Alex reads how much lead is in the atmosphere from the lead bombs that killed the Daxammites and refuses to let any of her species out of their ship, to the confusion of their Kryptonian Guard.

“We can’t,” she says, shaking her head. “It’ll kill us slowly. Lead isn’t just poisonous to those from Daxam.” _It’s like Flint all over again, but worldwide._ Alex tries not to think of all the humans that were left behind, that she can see outside through the windows begging to be let inside. “Don’t open the doors,” she orders, not wanting any of the toxic air to be let into her ship to affect her people, before she starts lift-off protocols.

Kara is the most vocal in her apology, hugging Alex and crying and saying _sorry_ over and over. Alex holds her stiffly, meeting Astra’s eyes, where she stands in the corner of the bridge. There is darkness there, but there is no regret.

“Humankind should not have been collateral,” the General says later, when they’re in the Kryptonian high-rise again, Alex lying on her front as Kryptonian scientists reattach her exoskeleton. “I have already ordered nearby Kryptonian outposts to retrieve as many as they can, so as to heal them from their suffering and offer them asylum on another planet.”

“Will we be going to that planet?” Alex questions. “Was it the one picked for us, before we came up with the idea of fucking lead bombs?”

“Yes.” Astra is silent as the final piece of exoskeleton is attached to her elbow, Alex sitting up heavily, still feeling the ache in her muscles even as the thin wires draped over her skin help her lean, gripping the sides of the bed. “Here,” the General says in an abnormally soft voice as she picks up Alex’s clothes, assisting her in attaching the Kryptonian bra-band that moulds to her shape and holds her in place, tracing the curve of her ribcage.

“Why blue?” Alex questions with a furrowed brow, when Astra zips up the side of her dark sleeve-less shirt. Her trousers are tightly-fitted and a darker charcoal but her shirt and trenchcoat-like jacket are that not-navy, bright blue. She pads at the crest on her lapel, frowning. “This is yours.”

“It is,” Astra says, voice stilted. “You come from no House, despite your family name. I offer you and yours residence and belonging in the House of Ze, as Matriarch.”

“You what?” Alex blinks, before looking around, pinpointing her parents in dark red. “That’s the House of El’s colours.”

“I welcomed them too, but Kara offered first, or rather, Jor-El did, at Kara’s request,” Astra tilts her head. “Catherine of Grant and her son, Carter, have also been offered their colours, but for different reasons.”

“Did Kara get her act together?” Alex jokes, before finding said Grant’s, eyes widening at how Kara and Cat are liplocked. “Oh, wow…” Winn and Susie are nearby, Susie in red and Winn, blue. “You got Winn.”

“I did,” Astra nods, before silence falls between them. Alex watches her, tracing the curve of her jaw and the tacky silver streak in her hair. “Alexandra, it would please me to know if you would stay on Krypton.”

“With you?” Alex questions.

“With me,” Astra nods, before kneeling in front of her. “I cannot control my _‘gay’_ and would wish that you stay, so that I might share my life with you.”

“…right,” Alex replies faintly. “Right, you…you’re attracted to me as well. I didn’t know.”

“You do now.”


End file.
